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The world’s most feature-packed SD memory card just got a bit more capable today as Eye-Fi has officially launched their Mobile X2 version featuring their new ‘Direct Mode’. The new mode, which was first shown off at CES earlier this year, lets the Eye-Fi card connect directly to an Android or iOS mobile device by creating its own wi-fi network, so the card and your smartphone/tablet can communicate even if you’re out in the middle of nowhere.

Direct Mode will also be available for the company’s existing Eye-Fi X2 cards via a firmware update available sometime next week, though users excited to try it out will still have to wait for the accompanying iOS and Android apps to hit their respective app stores. The new mode is pretty exciting though, as it lets users almost instantly see their shots on a larger display if they’re using it tethered to a tablet, and if the device happens to be equipped with 3G mobile data, the shots can then be automatically sent to an online gallery.

The new Eye-Fi Mobile X2 card which features 8GB of storage and the Direct Mode functionality already built-in will be available starting April 17 for $79.99.

The Eye-Fi Pro X2, which debuted at the beginning of this year, offers “endless memory” by deleting pictures off of itself after wirelessly uploading them to your computer and/or online photo storage service using built-in 802.11n WiFi. Not unexpectedly, such a useful feature isn’t cheap, with the 8 gig Eye-Fi Pro X2 costing a staggering $150.

Eye-Fi has just released two more SD cards in the X2 series with the endless memory feature, the Eye-Fi Connect X2 and the Eye-Fi Explore X2. The Connect X2 holds 4 gigs of stuff (not like it matters that much with the endless memory), while the Explore X2 is 8 gigs and includes lifetime geotagging of dubious quality and a year of hotspot WiFi access. The best news is that the Connect X2 is only $50, which is way more than a regular 4 gig SD card but way less than the $150 Pro X2 or even the Explore X2, which costs $100. If you don’t have an Eye-Fi card yet, the Connect X2 is definitely the one to get. If you’re looking for justification to upgrade to the Explore X2, if you travel a lot, Eye-Fi would also like you to know that their WiFi hotspots now include Starbucks and BP gas stations.

Incidentally, at CES Eye-Fi told me that the card’s ability to delete pictures off of itself is a hardware thing, not a software thing, so it’s not something that they can add to older cards with a firmware update or something like that. Sad, but sometimes, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

You can find Eye-Fi cards at Best Buy, Amazon.com, Adorama, and B&H among other places.

I’m not quite sure how they do it, but Eye-Fi manages to keep on cramming feature after useful into their wireless memory cards. This time around, they’re introducing a new tier of card (above Pro), the Pro X2. It costs $150, but at least read about what it does before you scoff at the price… The X2 is an 8 gig SDHC card with a built-in 802.11n antenna. N! N means faster uploads at greater distances, so that’s definitely good. And more storage is good too. But the most useful feature of the X2 is the option to have the card delete pictures after it uploads them, giving you an infinite amount of memory (provided you’re near some source of WiFi) while sharing and backing up your pictures real time. The card won’t delete anything until it’s confirmed that the upload was successful, but hypothetically, you can just stop worrying about whether or not you’re running out of space when taking pictures (or videos).

The X2 also comes with all the rest of the awesome Eye-Fi features, like RAW support, geotagging, ad-hoc WiFi connections, and Wayport WiFi access. Unfortunately, from what I can tell from the press release, the infinite memory option will be available on the new X2 cards only. This is a bit of a disappointment, since previous useful firmware upgrades were made available to all of the cards. But, I guess it’s probably somewhat unrealistic to expect to keep getting free goodies, and for you heavy shooters, the additional SDHC space and the potential for never having to worry about space again may make the X2 a worthwhile upgrade.

We’re all big fans of Eye-Fi cards, and rightly so: these SD cards include a wireless antenna that automatically sends pictures you take to your computer and to any number of photo sharing sites over your wireless network (read our reviews here and here). Our biggest quibble with the Eye-Fi cards is that they’re really freakin’ expensive compared to other SD cards, but today Sellout.Woot has a 2 gig Eye-Fi Explore for $45 shipped. The Explore version is an upgrade that includes a kinda crappy but still functional geotagging service plus one year of hotspot uploads. Yeah, 2 gigs isn’t that much storage, but remember that the whole point of this thing is that it’s uploading pictures for you, letting you free up space on your card while backing up your pics and the same time. Awesome gadget, good price.

[ The following article is sponsored by Eye-Fi. The device was provided free of charge, and I am being compensated for the time I took to review the product. The opinions expressed are entirely my own. -Ed. ]

By David Ponce

No one really likes cables. And the more electronic devices we own, the worse it gets. Anything anyone does to do away with all the spaghetti-like clutter is a good thing by my book. So that’s why I’ve always been a fan of Eye-Fi, makers of an SD card with an embedded Wi-Fi chip. Not only because it allows me to do away with the always-hard-to-find USB transfer cable, it actually makes my camera more useful (well, not quite my camera, no fault of Eye-Fi, but more on that in a minute). How so? By making it a snap to actually offload pictures from it and sharing them with whomever I like. This happens to be the entire point of cameras, but being the lazy person I am I’ve been known to leave pictures in there forever.

So does it work? Absolutely. Keep reading for a short review of the product.

When I reviewed the Eye-Fi wireless SD card back in May, one of the quibbles I had with it was that there was no way to decide which pictures you wanted to upload. The card would send ’em all… Good ones, bad ones, naked ones, everything you take just goes. In fact, here’s what I said: “there isn’t any way to designate specific pictures to upload, or not to upload. But of course, there isn’t really a way to integrate that sort of functionality into the card itself.” Yep, I said that. Happily, I’m here to report that I’m an idiot and Eye-Fi is a genius, because they’ve made it happen: you can now selectively upload pictures from your camera.

It’s quite simple, really: using the online manager, you can set up the card to only upload pictures (or videos) that you’ve designated on your camera as locked. That’s it. The rest of the pictures will stay on your card for you to do whatever you like with. On my Nikon D40x, the lock button is right next to my thumb. It’s easy, it works, and as of today it’s available for free for all Eye-Fi cards.

Also released today is a new, uh, level? of Eye-Fi card, the Eye-Fi Pro. It costs $150, and is able to handle RAW files, as well as connect to a computer via an ad-hoc wireless network, i.e. no router necessary. These are certainly nice features, although RAW support at least seems more like a firmware upgrade, and it would be cool if Eye-Fi would push that option out to their other cards, even if it’s for a small fee, so that people who want to be able to upload RAW don’t have to buy a whole new card. I guess I shouldn’t really complain, though, since we’re getting the selective upload update for free.

As we’ve mentioned to you before, the Eye-Fi card is really a pretty brilliant idea. Digital cameras are neat little gadgets, but getting all your awesome pics from your camera to the computer and to the internet is still a stone age process that involves plugging cables into things and taking cards out of things and running software and pushing buttons and waiting around. It’s utterly ridiculous. Eye-Fi has the solution to this, with an SD card that includes a WiFi antenna that automatically sends pictures and video that you take directly to the internet and your computer, no cables necessary.

We’ve got a full review of the Eye-Fi Explore Video for you, right after the jump.… Continue Reading

We’ve been fans of Eye-Fi cards since they were prototypes in 2006. I mean, what’s not to be a fan of? It’s a SD card that automatically uploads all your pics to your computer or the website of your choice over WiFi. Cool!

Now there’s a bunch more to be a fan of, as Eye-Fi has released their next generation of cards. The new cards have 4 gigs of storage, and can upload not only pictures, but also video (even HD video) to YouTube or Flickr. They’re available in two versions: the Explore costs $99 and includes low-res geotagging and hotspot access, while the $79 Share doesn’t include these features. You can preorder the new cards now, and the should be shipping by the end of the month.

Meantime, the original 2 gig versions of the Eye-Fi now start at only $49.

We’re big fans of Eye-Fi, makers of SD cards with integrated WiFi which allow you to use any digicam to send your pictures to your network. I won’t spend a good deal of time speaking about their features, other than to let you guys know that as of “sometime in ’09”, the cards will also let you upload videos as well as pictures.

OhGizmo! is a frequently updated blog that focuses on covering items that will appeal to a very specific and often very passionate audience: the geek. Aside from the fare of innovative consumer electronic products, the reader can expect to find news about geek culture, absurd inventions, awe inspiring technology, and an ever growing assortment of articles that we like to think fit within our view of what we’re calling the Geek Lifestyle.